Every Day Quotes September
by MissJayne
Summary: A series of oneshots and drabbles about our favourite characters. One quote per day.
1. Sep 1

Every Day Thoughts: September

_**Sep 1  
**_Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.  
**Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845)**

Ziva David was used to people treating her differently. Not because she was a woman and people seemed to automatically think this made her a weakling – she could and did happily dispel them of this absurd notion by promptly kicking them to the ground and keeping them there – but because they had a problem with her being Jewish.

And perhaps Israeli as well, but to her it was more because of her being Jewish.

She couldn't help being Jewish; her mother had been a Jew and that was all that really counted. Even if she was not Orthodox and even if she broke the rules from time to time, which she did, it did not matter that she still had faith and her faith was important to her. Simply being born to a Jewish mother was enough to make some people hate her from the bottom of her heart.

She knew she could spend the rest of her life reasoning with them that their hate was a stupid waste of energy and had no real basis in reality, for if she would be hated for simply being born, why could the world not hate them for exactly the same reason? What mattered to her was that she was comfortable in her own skin, and their insults meant nothing.

If they wished to put some form of action behind their words, she would make them sorely regret it. For she was Ziva David, Jew, Israeli and just like everyone else.

If she excluded the assassin part.


	2. Sep 2

_**Sep 2  
**_It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.  
**Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941)**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was satisfied by the smaller things in life. While his agents needed plenty of possessions to keep them occupied, and wouldn't stop complaining about what they didn't have, he was happy with the simple things.

As DiNozzo summed it up – boat, bourbon, basement. His boat kept him sane, gave him something to occupy his hours, gave him something to work towards, a visible target right in front of him. It made him smile when he ran his hand over a smooth rib. It gave him something to think about when he was in the line at the coffee shop – what did he need to do next? How could he improve on what he had already done?

Bourbon soothed him. Perhaps it wasn't ideal, using an alcoholic beverage to calm him down, but he knew his limits and despite whatever his team thought, didn't usually get through more than one mason jar a night. Bourbon reminded him that the past affected the present, that the present would affect the future. The buzz kept him from getting lost in the maelstrom of thoughts being alone could produce.

And his basement. Even without the boat, it was the room in his house he spent the most time in. It had no memories of his ex-wives, who had all rarely ventured into this domain. It had a handful of memories of Shannon and Kelly though, not enough to depress him but more than enough to make him smile as he remembered their time together. It was a place of solitude, somewhere he could block out the rest of the world.

Why would he ever need anything else?


	3. Sep 3

_**Sep 3  
**_I think that it's important for scientists to explain their work, particularly in cosmology. This now answers many questions once asked of religion.  
**Stephen Hawking (1942 - )**, _Interview with The Guardian (UK) September 27, 2005_

Despite her outward appearance, Abby Scuito made sure to attend church every Sunday. Well, every Sunday she was free and not busy catching criminals with her forensic skills at the Navy Yard. And she more than made up for the times she missed when she spent time with the nuns.

But there was something special about Sundays. She got to put on her best clothes and listen to a sermon, and then afterwards she would typically help out at the soup kitchen. Her evenings were spent relaxing with the nuns, discussing her week and comparing it with theirs. She did sometimes leave out little things from her stories – she was pretty sure they didn't need to know about the toe-eating cannibal feeding body parts to her husband.

Today, she was not attending church alone. Not that she ever did attend church alone; she wasn't the only one in the congregation, certainly not. Today, she was attending with Timmy, who had been persuaded to abandon his latest MMORPG for a few hours.

She smiled as he held her arm and gently guided her up the steps into the church. There was no one she would rather spend a Sunday morning with. And if she played her cards right, she might be able to persuade him to come to the soup kitchen with her later.


	4. Sep 4

_**Sep 4  
**_Nothing is less sincere than our mode of asking and giving advice. He who asks seems to have a deference for the opinion of his friend, while he only aims to get approval of his own and make his friend responsible for his action. And he who gives advice repays the confidence supposed to be placed in him by a seemingly disinterested zeal, while he seldom means anything by his advice but his own interest or reputation.  
**Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)**

Tony DiNozzo glanced around Abby's office as he waited for her to do her final sample preparation of the morning. She had promised she would be with him as soon as she had Major Mass Spec ready to go, but until then he had her office to himself.

It was a nice office, especially to Tony as he didn't have any space he could call his own in the Navy Yard. Sure, he had a desk, but it was in the middle of Team Gibbs' space, which all belonged to the great man himself and he could use it at any moment. Ziva had a nasty habit of stealing his GSM's from his drawer and never returning them, while the Probie had been caught on his computer more than once.

To have a space to call his own would be perfect.

Abby bounced through the door and gave him an extra hug. "So, Tony. How can I help you this fine morning?"

He returned her smile with his own patented DiNozzo one. "Gibbs' birthday's coming up."

She nodded. "Next week."

"I'm… kind of stuck on present options."

She picked Bert up from his shelf to give him a hug. "I thought you had something."

"Bourbon," he admitted. "Too obvious."

"But he likes bourbon, so he's not going to be disappointed," she pointed out. "Take a seat and we'll figure something out."


	5. Sep 5

_**Sep 5  
**_You can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.  
**Malcolm Gladwell**, _Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2005_

Cynthia enjoyed her work at NCIS, even if sometimes she secretly slacked. She knew she wasn't the only one – she had seen Jenny reading paperbacks when she should have been dealing with paperwork a few times. Everyone needed a little downtime. As far as she was concerned, as long as she completed her work on time and accurately, she should be allowed a little time to herself to recharge her batteries before moving onto the next task.

There was one thing she had a weakness for. Fanfiction. It was so ubiquitous on the Internet, so simple to locate and effortless to minimize a window should someone walk into her domain. She was tempted to alert Agent McGee to the sheer number of stories devoted to _Deep Six_, but was a little concerned he would block access to the sites from the Navy Yard.

And that would never do.

While she waited for Senator Matthews to appear for a meeting with Director Shepard, she browsed for a new story. Oh, something by an author she enjoyed. Smiling to herself, she began to read, aware she probably shouldn't be reading an M-rated story at work, and definitely not between the characters she knew were based on Agent Gibbs and Jenny, but it was not like she was going to be caught.

She was riveted so much by the plot (or, more accurately, the lack of it) that it wasn't until she was halfway through the story that she noticed it.

The description of Jenny's office.

Agent McGee had briefly described it in one of his books, but Jenny had moved some things around since then and he hadn't gone into _this_ much detail. Scanning the text again, she realized the author had described Jenny's office perfectly.

Her suspicions aroused, she rapidly located the author's page.

_About me: a redhead working with the Navy._

She didn't need to read any further. She and Jenny needed to have a conversation.


	6. Sep 6

_**Sep 6  
**_You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.  
**Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)**

Timothy McGee loved Scrabble. Playing it brought back memories of his childhood, when his whole family would sit around a table in the evenings and play for hours. It made him feel warm and safe.

He didn't only play it for the sentimental value. He was pretty good at it, knowing tricky words other people didn't think of or were aware of. He liked the challenge. He liked winning. Even when he lost, he learnt from his mistake so he wouldn't lose a second time.

After a very slow day, he was playing the game with Tony in the squad room. Gibbs was in the Director's office, getting yelled at after flirting with the Channel Five reporter who had appeared at their crime scene yesterday. _El jefe_ wouldn't be downstairs for hours, and they would all have slipped home by then.

"B-R-E-V-I-T-T," Tony spelled slowly, placing his tiles down.

"Not a word, Tony," Tim replied.

"It's a word!"

"No, it's not."

"It is."

"What does it mean?"

Tony scrunched his face up for a moment. "Erm, Ziva? Help me out here. Brevitt."

"I think it has something to do with shoes," Ziva suggested. "But English is not my first language."

"See?" Tony argued. "It's a word. Even Ziva knows it."

"Aha!" Ziva exclaimed. "It is a brand of shoes."

"Tony," Tim groaned. "You can't use that word."

"Why not? It's a word!"

Tim sighed. He was going to be here all night explaining this one. Next time, he'd just play with Ziva.


	7. Sep 7

_**Sep 7  
**_The peculiar striations that define someone's personality are too numerous to know, no matter how close the observer. A person we think we know can suddenly become someone else when previously hidden strands of his character are called to the fore by circumstance.  
**Elliot Perlman**, _Seven Types of Ambiguity_

Ziva David did not cry. If asked under oath, she would deny it until her dying day. She could ace a lie detector, if someone ever chose to ask her such a question while she was hooked up to a machine. She was a steely-eyed assassin, unable to shed tears.

If her very close friends were asked, they would, after copious amounts of alcohol and only after repeated assurances of protection for the rest of their lives from her, admit she did occasionally cry. She had cried in Tony's apartment after watching _Titanic_ with him. She had cried in Jenny's townhouse after a long day and a disastrous phone call with her father. She had cried in Gibbs' basement after she had killed her brother.

Right now, she was crying in a new location with a different friend. For once, she had allowed herself to cry on the Navy Yard, though that was more in part to the upsetting movie she and Abby had just finished. Perhaps watching it in MTAC had been a bad idea, but the Goth had raved about the screen size and surround sound, and said they had to try it at least once.

As another tear rolled down her cheek, Abby produced a tissue out of nowhere and handed it over, followed by a gentle hug. Ziva managed a weak smile. Someone else would keep her secret.


	8. Sep 8

_**Sep 8  
**_Real love is a permanently self-enlarging experience.  
**M. Scott Peck**, _O Magazine, February 2004_

As the elevator jerked to life, Abby Scuito put her arms around Timmy. He rapidly responded, his arms encircling her and making her feel warm and safe.

They couldn't cuddle like this anywhere else in the Navy Yard. If Gibbs thought anyone was potentially going to hurt his little girl, he would go on a rampage, and Abby did not want to have to prevent him from killing Timmy. Well, she would if it came to it, especially as Gibbs would never ever hit a girl and certainly not her, and as long as she made it in-between the two men she could stop the bloodshed.

She didn't worry about this at _all_.

She rested her head on his shoulder, relaxing as she heard his slow but steady breathing. Another day survived in the field. For him anyway; Gibbs didn't allow her in the field and she wasn't sure she wanted to go there anyway. Too many guns and bad people. Timmy put himself in harm's way every day, and while she worried she might not get him back, she knew he was making a difference and she would never ask him to stop.

As the elevator ground to a halt, they slowly separated, appearing normal as they stepped out of the metal cage and into the parking garage.


	9. Sep 9

_**Sep 9  
**_I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.  
**Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC)**, _Agamemnon_

Mike Franks loved to hear news from his Probie. While tucked away in his self-imposed exile (or retirement, as Jethro liked to call it), he liked to know a bit about the world beyond his beach every now and then.

He didn't care about the big stuff or the little stuff. He didn't care about who was fighting who in the world, or who was dating whom, or the latest car to be sold. It didn't make one bit of difference to him. Unless it was going to directly affect his stretch of beach and his shack, the world could go to hell (and it probably was).

What he liked to hear about was Jethro's achievements. Well, perhaps not necessarily Jethro's achievements and he didn't consider it an achievement to do your damn job, but he liked to hear about cases being solved, criminals brought to justice, and some semblance of law and order enforced on the streets.

He didn't hear much. Probie was always too busy working on the cases to update him, and he didn't like his cantina time disturbed too much. But every now and then, when they were both in the mood (and it was rare), they would sit down with a beer each in their respective countries and share the news.

And although Mike would never admit it, it was nice to hear he'd trained his Probie well.


	10. Sep 10

_**Sep 10  
**_Never give a child a sword.  
**Latin Proverb**

Jackson Gibbs enjoyed looking back on the days when his son had been young. They had had such fun together, laughing and joking. Well, until his wife had died, and then things had gone south pretty quick. But there were still some good memories in his head.

Sometimes he wondered if he had raised his kid right. He guessed most people had the same doubts about their kids. He couldn't have done too badly – Leroy was a fine man, upstanding citizen and determined to help others. He had carved out a good career for himself in law enforcement after an outstanding career in the Marines. No one would ever say he had raised his boy wrong.

Sometimes he looked at his rifle in the store, hanging over the counter where it always was. He glanced up, and for a moment he could see Leroy with his own rifle in hand. A sniper. He had raised a sniper, from a kid who wasn't permitted to touch a gun.

It made him smile. It made no difference to him what Leroy had become. As long as his boy was good at it and enjoyed it, it didn't matter to him. As long as his son loved and was loved in return, he didn't mind what Leroy did.


	11. Sep 11

_**Sep 11  
**_Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.  
**Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)**

Abby Scuito shut the door to her lab and tried to lock it. Maybe she should do this more often, as the lock was stuff and unused to being utilized.

Then again, she rarely wanted to shut any potential visitors out. She had so few of them and they were so kind to her, and normally she was left all alone in her lab with her babies and Bert, and people wondered why she had started talking to them. But today she needed an hour or so of peace, and it was not going to work if Gibbs thought he might have a result or Tony wanted to plot and either of the men burst into her lab.

She admitted there was the small possibility that they would panic on seeing a locked door, but she would deal with that if it came to it.

Door finally impenetrable, she switched her music off and settled in the far corner of her lab. The incense was burning, though she didn't really need it. But it helped to relax her mind and that was the plan.

Ziva had been teaching her how to meditate, and now it was time to try it for herself.

In the peaceful lab, Abby soon found herself relaxing. This had been a very good idea.


	12. Sep 12

_**Sep 12  
**_A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.  
**Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs rarely spoke to his team. It wasn't necessary. He was training them to be better agents, not debate his every word. While other Supervisory Agents could teach their teams in whatever way they wished (and while they weren't bad agents, they were too open to discussions), he would teach his team the way he knew worked.

After all, he'd learnt this way.

When he did speak, his team hung onto and obeyed every word. They weren't about to cross him in a hurry, or unless they were certain he was going down the wrong path. He encouraged them to anticipate his instructions by saying little. If they weren't told directly what to do, they had to figure it out for themselves. If they had to figure it out, they rapidly figured out how to investigate on their own.

DiNozzo finished a slightly rambling monologue about a possible suspect. Gibbs allowed him a little leeway – they had been up for thirty hours and were unlikely to be napping any time soon. He took a very brief moment to decide what he wanted his team to do.

"DiNozzo," he began.

"Locate the girlfriend," Tony finished, heading back to his desk.

"David."

"Phone records."

"McGee."

"Bank statements, credit cards reports," the younger man finished, already at his desk.

He allowed himself a quick smirk. They were getting there.


	13. Sep 13

_**Sep 13  
**_Curiosity is the key to creativity.  
**Akio Morita (1921 - )**, _Made in Japan (1986)_

Tony DiNozzo hated the phrase that said curiosity killed the cat. What cat? How long did it take? Was it definitely curiosity, or did that only play a role? Was it in fact killed by a Mossad ninja?

He knew he was curious about things, but he wanted to understand why things were the way they were. Why did Ziva keep that one drawer of her desk locked and threaten to remove his fingers one by one if he attempted to get inside? Why did Probie-san work so hard when Gibbs wasn't around? Were Gibbs and his lady Director getting up to sneaky things in the NCIS elevators?

He kicked the rucksack a few times, wincing as some of the mud transferred onto his new shoes. Four hundred dollars – he would have to get them cleaned. He couldn't go around with them looking like this.

"McGee," he called, not looking over his shoulder to check if the Probie was coming. If he wasn't, he would be in trouble for disobeying an order from his Senior Field Agent. Tony grinned. _Senior_ Field Agent…

"What?" McGee snapped, glancing at the bag.

"Open it," Tony demanded.

"It looks like it took a mud bath," McCoward noted.

"Exactly why _you_ are opening it."

"It's just a rucksack!"

"In our suspect's home. In _Gibbs'_ prime suspect's home. Do you want to explain to Gibbs why we searched everywhere but one little rucksack?"

The Probie sighed, but obediently crouched down to open it. Tony caught some vague mumblings and chose to ignore them. At least _he_ wasn't the one getting covered in mud.


	14. Sep 14

_**Sep 14  
**_Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.  
**Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986)**, _Dune_

Ziva David had met a lot of people and been to a lot of places. But she knew the universe and the people in it would never quite make sense.

When applied correctly, logic seemed to provide an understanding of the world. Even Tony managed to avoid getting hit by a bus or shot by a suspect every other day, and his logic skills were underdeveloped. But once the surface was scratched, things made no sense at all.

People were the most confusing things she came across on a daily basis. Whether it was believing they could get away with murder, believing that murder was right (and while she agreed it could be at times, killing a cheating spouse did not fall into her categories), thinking they could lie to Gibbs and get away with it, thinking they could lie to _her_ and get away with it… The list was endless. Not to mention Tony, who was simply a law of the universe unto himself.

Ziva did not even want to think of the quantum world that Abby had tried and completely failed to explain, though the Goth had pointed out the whole field made no sense anyway, so she was not alone.

Perhaps the whole point of the world was that it would never make sense. Perhaps there was no need to apply logic. Perhaps it was best simply to get on with your life and enjoy it.


	15. Sep 15

_**Sep 15  
**_Fifteen cents of every twenty-cent stamp goes to storage.  
**Louis Rukeyser**

Abby Scuito stamped her platform encased foot on the floor and pouted. This was unfair. She was almost one hundred percent certain she had put it on her desk somewhere.

Stamps were the bane of her life, at the moment anyway. She had bought a nice set with which to send letters to her penpal Kitty over in Arizona, and now she couldn't lay her hands on them. She had bought them yesterday, put them on her desk, gone to lunch with Ducky and Palmer, come back and worked for hours and hours until _el jefe_ had wandered by and forced her to take a break, shared Chinese takeout with Team Gibbs in the squad room, finished a few analyses and finally gone home. There was no way she had moved them since she'd bought them.

She discarded the thought that someone else could have moved them. No one dared touch her desk. The problem was most likely related to her desk currently looking a little messy.

Picking up her latest forensic journals, she dropped them on the floor. Time to start making piles. She could ask Timmy to move them to their new homes when he next came to see her. Forensic reports for various agents who hadn't bothered to pick them up yet, new pile on the floor. Oh, there was that chocolate bar Gibbs had given her yesterday afternoon. She couldn't be too far off.

Apparently chocolate was deceptive. It took another five minutes to find her stamps, and six separate piles for Timmy to move. At least she could see the surface of her desk now. And Kitty's letter would be mailed when she went for lunch with Tony.


	16. Sep 16

_**Sep 16  
**_Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.  
**Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007)**, _Cold Turkey_

Jennifer Shepard knew she was more than a little addicted to caffeine. She liked to blame it on her old partner. Getting her hooked on Jamaican Blend, what had he been thinking?

In an effort to convince herself she wasn't really addicted and could give up any time, she always attempted to go caffeine-free for one week a year. Unfortunately, as Director of an armed federal agency, there wasn't really a good week in which to do this. And she sort of needed the caffeine to deal with all the messes her old partner got into.

Right now, sitting in her office and staring at her paperwork, with a meeting coming up with Senator Matheson, she needed all the caffeine goodness she could get. Unfortunately she couldn't get drunk before midday on Day One of her attempt to live caffeine-free, especially not with a Senator coming to see her. She sighed. Maybe she should just ask Cynthia to fetch her a nice coffee and she would reschedule this for next week…

The door violently banged open and she tried not to jump out of her skin. No matter how many times Jethro did that, she would never quite get used to it.

"How can I help you this morning, Agent Gibbs?" she greeted him politely, hoping he would go away quickly.

He smirked, placing his coffee on her conference table where she couldn't reach but could still smell it.

"Thanks," she called after him as he left, closing the door behind him.


	17. Sep 17

_**Sep 17  
**_Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.  
**James A. Garfield (1831 - 1881)**

Tony DiNozzo jogged triumphantly into the squad room, tossing his rucksack under his desk and collapsing gratefully into his chair.

Unfortunately, the Probie did not pick up the bait. But his Mossad ninja chick looked up, blinked heavily, and decided to ask.

"Why are you jogging?"

He broke into a wide smile. Ah, to inform his teammates of new developments. "I met this girl at the gym," he began, only for Ziva to interrupt him.

"What were you doing at the gym? Normally you avoid those places as if they are known carriers of the plague."

He stuck out his tongue at her. "I belong to a gym, Ms David. And while I was there last week, I met their newest instructor. Mandy."

"Of course this involves a girl." Ziva dropped her pen onto her desk and leant back in her chair. "Let me guess, you are trying to get fit for her."

Tony stared at her. Did they teach mind-reading at Mossad? "How'd you know?"

McGee snorted from over at his desk. Apparently he wasn't working as hard as he appeared. "Lucky guess," he offered.

"I ran three miles this morning," Tony boasted.

"Very good." For once, Ziva did not appear to be teasing him. "Would you like to run with me tomorrow?"

"Go ahead," he smiled. "Do your worst."

"Very well." Her grin became feral. "Zero five hundred, my place. We will do an eight mile circuit."

He groaned. He'd walked right into that.


	18. Sep 18

_**Sep 18  
**_Everything passes, everything breaks, everything wearies.  
**French Proverb**

Ziva David was no longer surprised that NCIS' resident forensic scientist never seemed to change.

Over time, she had watched everyone in her life change. Her father had become more aloof and withdrawn. Ari had turned to the wrong side. Gibbs had slowly started to speak more often, although getting more than one sentence out of him at a time was like prying teeth. Tony was even more slowly becoming more responsible. McGee was becoming more confident in himself.

Ziva could even recognize changes in herself. She was more open, more willing to show her emotions and her vulnerabilities. She was willing to love and be loved. She had friends she cared about and could admit the truth to.

But Abby never changed. Abby was always filled with joy, filled with knowledge, capable of the greatest act of kindness and not realizing what a difference she made in the world. She was a shining beacon of light, drawing people to her like moths to a flame. But this flame did not kill them; it filled them with hope, with love, with admiration. She knew the best thing to say in every situation.

While Ziva was used to everything changing, she wished Abby would stay the way she was. There was no way to improve her friend.


	19. Sep 19

_**Sep 19  
**_Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.  
**Og Mandino (1923 - 1996)**

Timothy McGee focused exclusively on the computer in front of him. He could do this, he could do this, he could do this.

Gibbs had asked him to access a suspect's financials. Normally, Tim could do it in his sleep, which helped when he was bone-tired and the boss was cracking the whip. He had done it so many times, his fingers knew the paths to trace on the keyboard. It was no longer a difficult task, just one that took a little bit of time.

Tim sorely wished he could face their current suspect in Interrogation whenever Tony tracked him down. Who the hell had a Swiss bank account anyway? Their suspect had never left the country so it wasn't like he had a legitimate excuse for having one, though Tim was sure an expensive lawyer could come up with one.

He bent over his keyboard, determined to find a way into this. Blooming Swiss, protecting their records so carefully. Maybe afterwards he would reflect that it was nice to face a challenge every once in a while, especially given how fast he could access, say, Gibbs' financials.

He would find a way in. It was only a matter of time…


	20. Sep 20

_**Sep 20  
**_In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love.  
**Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)**

Sometimes, Ducky wondered why he bothered. It wasn't most people's thought of '_I should retire and explore the world, or spend more time with my family, or just spend more time in my garden_.' The Scotsman could have retired years ago, but he had his reasons for staying.

But then he remembered the justice he achieved for so many of his guests. He recalled giving them names and voices, making their story heard. He thought of how many killers he was responsible for putting behind bars, and it helped, for a while.

Most days, the fight seemed endless. He helped one poor soul achieve justice while two more were wheeled into his autopsy suite. Death never rested. Death didn't care about weekends or holidays. Death never paused, and only seemed to get more violent and senseless.

Sometimes he wondered why he put so much effort it. When he looked back and saw how many guests he had had, the number seemed endless. Nothing ever changed. Murder marched onwards.

But when he thought of his guests as individuals, as people who had once lived, breathed and loved, he realized he could never give up his vocation. If he could find justice for just one individual, it would make a world of difference. If he viewed everything as one individual after another, he could see in the eyes of the family how important his job was.

Some days he would have doubts. Most of the time, he had faith in himself.


	21. Sep 21

_**Sep 21  
**_It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.  
**Rose Kennedy (1890 - 1995)**

Abby Scuito grinned as Jenny walked into her lab. Temporarily abandoning her entomological report, she scurried over to the redhead and enveloped her in a hug.

To her credit, Jenny didn't even need to take a step back. Abby had trained her well.

She released her friend, caught her by the hand and briefly wondered if the Director's protection detail would jump on her for touching the redhead, and dragged her over to her workstation.

"We need to talk," she insisted.

Jenny just looked bemused. "About what?"

"We can discuss Tony, Ziva and that supply closet next to Legal later," Abby babbled.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Jenny gently pointed out.

Abby's eyes lit up. "Scars. Gibbs showed me his scar yesterday, the one where he got shot in the butt? So today, everyone who comes to my lab needs to show me an interesting scar."

"Do I want to know why Jethro showed you _that_ scar?" Jenny wondered out loud.

"Because I asked!" Abby beamed.

Jenny shrugged her shoulders. "Okay. Hang on." She began to unbutton her crisp Oxford shirt, Abby keeping an eye on the door in case anyone should wander in. It wouldn't do for Tony to snap a picture.

"Here." Abby looked at Jenny's upper back, just below her right shoulder blade. A neat scar cut across her fair skin.

"What happened?" Now the Goth was intrigued.

Jenny began to button her shirt back up. "Israel. Knife. I'm sure Ziva would happily give you the details, and then you could ask her about this supply closet business."

Abby grinned. An excellent idea.


	22. Sep 22

_**Sep 22**_

It is bitter to lose a friend to evil, before one loses him to death.

**Mary Renault**, _The Praise Singer, 1978_

In the darkest of nights, when she could not sleep and was resigned to watching raindrops cascade down her window, Ziva David thought of her brother.

She did not think of those happy moments in her childhood when it seemed nothing was wrong with the world, and if there was Ari would protect her and save her. She did not think of all the times he had made her and Tali laugh, the adventures they had had together. She did not think of the times she had been afraid and he had soothed her, or of the childish fear of storms he had known about and the times he had allowed her to crawl into his bed so she would feel safe.

Only when the world was sleeping did she allow herself to wonder if it would have been better had he died before he had betrayed his country and himself.

She knew she would prefer to die before she did the same. Her loyalty to the cause was absolute, but then again she had believed Ari's to be too. If he had died, whether in the field or by being hit by a vehicle or from some sort of illness, would she now view him better?

Or was it best that she had seen the evil within him and pulled the trigger herself?

She reached out and traced a slow raindrop with her fingertip. She would never know, but she knew what hurt the most.

Her brother was dead.


	23. Sep 23

_**Sep 23  
**_For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  
For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.  
**Edwin Teale**

Tony DiNozzo felt autumn was perhaps the wrong time of year for a spring clean, but Gibbs had tried to find a working pen on his desk the other day and ordered him to sort it out.

Although Tony hadn't quite understood why _el jefe_ thought _he_ was the best person to borrow a pen from, he wouldn't question the order. Bad things had been known to happen when people didn't do as Gibbs said. Agent Fitzgerald had never quite been the same…

His desk was nothing short of an organized dump, though most people questioned the 'organized' part of it. Tony ignored them; the order made sense in his head, and seeing as it was his desk, it didn't necessarily have to make sense to anyone else.

Cocking his head to one side, he decided that perhaps Gibbs had a point. He hadn't been able to find February's edition of GSM for one. And his _Beowulf_ DVD had disappeared for three weeks until he'd found it wedged down the back of his bottom drawer. And Ziva's birthday present had gone mysteriously missing… oh wait, that was because his little ninja had stolen it before he'd had a chance to give it to her.

He began to gather his possessions together. Perhaps he could bribe the Probie to help.


	24. Sep 24

_**Sep 24  
**_A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.  
**Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)**

Abby Scuito sprang into the squad room, her eyes full of excitement. Scanning the room, she frowned momentarily at her silver-haired fox being absent, but, deciding he was probably hunting down his caffeine dealer and she could collar him later, she perked up again.

"Are you all ready to vote?" she demanded, perching on the end of Gibbs' desk and beaming at them all. She could possibly have gotten away with sitting in _el jefe_'s chair, given she was the favorite, but wasn't quite prepared to risk it today.

Tony, normally ready to leap at any excuse not to work, groaned. "Don't remind me. It's months away."

"Have you not been following the race at all?" Tim asked his co-worker, before turning to Abby. "I think I know who I'm voting for. I made a matrix of the things that really concern me, and I've researched the views of everyone."

Abby grinned. "We need to compare matrices," she decided. "Tony?"

"I'm not even sure who's who," he admitted. "Which election are we talking about again?"

Ziva threw a paperclip at him. "I am not interested, Abby," she declared.

The Goth stared at her in horror. "Why not? You have a vote; it's your civic responsibility to use it."

Ziva shrugged her shoulders. "Whoever is in charge, nothing changes," she pointed out. "I would rather save my energy."

Abby frowned. She needed Team Gibbs to start taking an interest and fast.


	25. Sep 25

_**Sep 25  
**_He that loves the law will get his fill of it.  
**Scottish Proverb**

Leroy Jethro Gibbs really _really_ hated lawyers.

His distrust had begun with divorce lawyers. Slimy, smarmy toads who cost a fortune and were either unable to defend his meager wage or succeeded in making him hand over a suspiciously large amount of money to a redhead he never wanted to see again. He wasn't entirely sure how he had managed to hang onto the one possession he refused to give up (his precious house; he could always build another boat if one of the ex-wives wanted his so badly).

He had then slowly begun to hate defense lawyers. Always on the hunt for a technicality, always trying to keep their client, who was usually a murdering, drug-dealing scumbag or some other variation on a theme, walking the streets so he could continue his long and storied career of murder, drug-dealing, or whatever it was. They thought purely in terms of money and never about the innocent people's lives their client had destroyed.

Slowly but surely, his hatred had spread to all lawyers. Even the ones who were supposed to be helping him. Either they couldn't get him a warrant that was essential to getting another criminal off the streets, or they couldn't make the charges stick, or they plea-bargained their way out of even the most simple cases.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs hated lawyers. There was a reason he devoted seven of his valuable Rules to them.


	26. Sep 26

_**Sep 26  
**_I live in company with a body, a silent companion, exacting and eternal.  
**Eugene Delacroix (1798 - 1863)**

Ducky was used to silence. It was a constant companion; not a particularly welcoming one, but one he was comfortable with.

He enjoyed silence, after a fashion. It gave him a chance to focus on his guests, a chance to achieve the small justices they would want after death. A name. An identity. The discovery of the nature of their death. The discovery of anything that would lead to their killer, if they had met an unnatural end. For their loved ones to have any closure possible.

He did not approve of mindless chatter like Anthony reveled in; his taste was for conversation relating to the work or related information. Perhaps because he spent every day with the deceased in person, he knew how solemn every death was. While joking around did make it easier to work sometimes, it was necessary to maintain a certain respectful air.

His current companion lay on the cold table, completely exposed. Ducky sometimes felt an autopsy bared every last secret, most of which the person would have wished to stay hidden. He saw their scars, their secret pains, every last act that had been performed in the previous few days. Everything was revealed.

Sometimes he wished he did not learn particular pieces of information. Sometimes he learnt something he knew would have mortified his guest were they alive. But he bore these secrets in silence, prepared to carry them to his own grave.


	27. Sep 27

_**Sep 27  
**_If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.  
**Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)**

The frying pan came crashing down on Tony DiNozzo's head, and he firmly resisted the urge to pass out.

Ouch.

He didn't deserve to be hit with culinary instruments, even if his sadistic partner spent an inordinate amount of her time threatening to torture him with miscellaneous pieces of office stationary. Speaking of his partner, she had hared it out of the house after their suspect. A grin split his face as he thought about her predictable response if he told her that expression.

She had done the right thing, from a 'catch the suspect' point of view. Tony was seeing stars, but was becoming more and more confident he wouldn't pass out and thus let down the DiNozzo family tradition. Gibbs was going to demand an ER trip, but he harbored the chance of sneaking past the ex-marine and seeing Ducky first. He wasn't getting stuck in the ER unless he absolutely had to.

He cradled his head in his hands. This was going to hurt for hours. There was a faint ringing in his ears, though it could always be his cell phone. Gibbs liked updates at the weirdest moments. He closed his eyes but the stars remained.

Someone was going to make their suspect pay in Interrogation later, even if he wasn't up for the job.


	28. Sep 28

_**Sep 28  
**_You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.  
**Orison Swett Marden (1850 - 1924)**

Abby Scuito danced on the outside as well as the inside when Gibbs walked through the door of her lab. A visitor!

She needed visitors like Tony needed girlfriends. Sure, she could go without them, but she became lonely and depressed. A visitor cured all ills, even if they occasionally brought something with them.

And she wanted to have a word with this particular visitor. She'd had an idea a few hours back, but with one thing and another she had become bogged down in her analyses and been unable to call her silver-haired fox and ask her question.

"Gibbs," she began, with her sweetest smile firmly on her face, the one that made even a homicidal Ziva calm down.

"Abs," he replied.

"Have you ever failed?" she asked. "Not like a school test or something, although I never failed a school test, but I mean _fail_ failed, like when Tony stuck his foot through –"

"Don't think I've ever succeeded," he informed her, cutting her rambling off towards the beginning rather than allowing her to pick up speed.

"Well, with Tony maybe, but that's just because he's our loveable Tony." she mused. "Look at Director Shepard. You clearly trained her well. Who else can say they trained their current boss so well she became the first female Director of an armed federal agency?"

She thought he muttered something about her sitting behind a desk all day and wasting her talents, but the Goth decided to ignore it. "Gilmore case?" he asked more clearly. Beaming, she began her run-through of the evidence. She could continue this conversation later.


	29. Sep 29

_**Sep 29  
**_Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.  
**Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)**

Timothy McGee believed good personal conduct could help anyone succeed.

No matter how academic or technically minded a person was, simple manners made all the difference. 'Please' and 'thank you' made the world go around. Smiling at strangers would make them friends; a stranger was simply a friend you had not met yet. Holding doors and elevators was polite.

And if the simple things made such a big difference, made people smile and think favorably of another person, what could big things do? Abby was loved by all due to her friendly nature and genuine desire to help in any way she could. No problem was too small; if it bothered you, it bothered her.

Good conduct bred good conduct. Helping someone out in the present would repay you in the future, perhaps not in a direct 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' kind of way, but in a way that meant that person would be more disposed to assist you if you needed it.

No one wanted to associate with someone who was known to have bad conduct. No one wanted to talk to a liar, to share secrets with someone who would pass them on, to help someone who would only scorn them. By having good conduct, not only was he fulfilling his moral duties, but he opened the path to success in the future, success in every avenue of life.


	30. Sep 30

_**Sep 30  
**_I believe that one of life's greatest risks is never daring to risk.  
**Oprah Winfrey (1954 - )**, _O Magazine, September 2003_

Ziva David giggled like a girl. For once, she did not care what she sounded like. She could not believe this.

Her partner, always willing to face down murderers and rapists with one hand tied behind his back, possibly by her, was not prepared to take one little tiny risk. What was he, twelve?

"It is only a small risk," she teased him from behind her desk. "It is not like I am asking you to jump out of a plane."

"Been there, done that," he crowed.

She smirked. "I heard you were pushed out," she countered. "But it is not in the same confederacy."

"League," McGee piped up from across the squad room, keeping his head down and his eyes focused on his screen.

"Toda," she offered, before returning to her partner. "Why not, huh? Why not take a risk?"

He glared at her. "Like you said, it's not in the same league. I'm happy with the way things are now."

"You were complaining not two hours ago," she retorted.

Tony looked over to McGee, who simply nodded his reply.

"Just once?" she tried. "For me. Or I shall tell Gibbs who broke the springs in his chair."

"Ziva, for the last time, I'm not changing my barber."


End file.
